The 2019 Cacowards + The Roots Of Doom Mapping

[Kinsie]

I can't possibly imagine why there wasn't a thread about this earlier...

The 2019 Cacowards
Tons of ZDoom-family reppin' this year, with Verdant Citadel, Paradise, Hell-Forged, The Wayfarer and (of course) Hocus Doom taking home the gold, Lt. Typhon and NAKU-NARU dominating the Gameplay Mods section, and Hedon and the upscaling project looming over the misc. awards. And of course, there's Jimmy getting a much deserved Espi award for soundtracking pretty much every level of the last ten years, on top of his astounding mapping and community efforts. And that's not even getting into the multiplayer stuff or the runners-up!

The Roots of Doom Mapping: An Evolution of Level Design Through the Most Influential WADs Ever Made
A 30,000-word dissertation on mapping history, from the dawn of the series through the divergence into Boom-compat and Zdoom-compat schools and their slow reunion. Lots of familiar faces here, but you might find a few new WADs to love among the well-written, unending torrent of sentences. Alternatively, you'll just have a nice lazy afternoon's reading sorted.

[kodi]

Congratulations to the well-deserved lifetime achievement Jimmy!

[Teddipetzi]

What bothers me is the Cacoward for that gross vanilla conveyor hack. This looks like the stuff coding nightmares are made of. Does GZDoom even support this thing, and if yes, how much could this affect the engine's stability? The description alone of how this works makes me uneasy.

[Kinsie]

What bothers me is the Cacoward for that gross vanilla conveyor hack. This looks like the stuff coding nightmares are made of. Does GZDoom even support this thing, and if yes, how much could this affect the engine's stability? The description alone of how this works makes me uneasy.

I don't believe GZDoom supports it. It's just real cool that something that required Boom can be wrangled into working in vanilla through the magic of mad science.

[Graf Zahl]

No, GZDoom doesn't support it, the entire effect depends on an integer overflow so any port using floating point coordinates will not be affected by it. No, I won't add support for it.

Mappers who want to use it need to be aware that their mods will most likely be unplayable outside of Doomworld, because not only GZDoom doesn't support it but also k8vavoom and EDGE and if I am not mistaken Doomsday as well. I really thought that Linguortals were the worst that could come but this one is indeed the stuff coding nightmares are made of, it directly translates to abusing an implementation limitation and if it catches on would write that limit in stone.

[Curunir]

Yay for Jimmy! \o/

[Graf Zahl]

Jimmy more than deserved this. Too bad that he didn't get the mapping Cacoward he also deserved.

[Curunir]

I don't play a lot of speedmapping / community packs but I did play both Adventures of Square and the Faithless hub and both had some great levels. There's always next year, I imagine.

[Scuba Steve]

I'm the biggest offender of form over function, I like things because they look pretty... But even I appreciate the zaniness of the vanilla conveyor.

[Graf Zahl]

What I don't appreciate is the consequences, i.e. this is such an extreme glitch abuse that it will result in very problematic maps. So for me the best course of action is saying "no".

[kodi]

I don't think anyone would have a problem with that

[Kinsie]

If it's just "thing falls below a certain z level wraps around to a certain z level" it'd probably be crazy easy for the mapper to include some a script to emulate that on GZDoom-based ports. Probably wouldn't be difficult on whatever other floating-point enabled ports exist (Eternity?). Certainly not worth gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over hypotheticals.

[wildweasel]

Some Unpleasantness has been split off. I would really appreciate it if we could see this topic as a place to celebrate and enjoy the things that exist to be enjoyed, and not drumming up the drama of yesteryear once again.

[phantombeta]

Since this was lost in the split:
While not 100% related to the 2019 cacowards, here's some numbers on (G)ZDoom-specific mods in the cacowards:

Code: Select all

2004: 7 [Action Doom (TC?), RTC-3057 (TC?), Decade (map), Chosen (TC), ZDoom Community Map, Doom: Rampage Edition (crappy TC, worst wad), Doomworld Forums 3 (map?, mockaward)]
2005: 5 [Simplicity (Mapset), HeDRoX (map), Temple of Chaos 2 - Warped Reality (map), Total Control (map), Jägermörder 02 Terra Nova (map, mordeth)]
2006: 6 [Phocas Island 2 (TC), Operation Overlord (map), Foreverhood (TC), Nazi Augerstehung (very crappy TC, worst wad), How Not To Be Seen! (map, mockaward), TurboCharged ARCADE! (Demo Release) (mapset, mockaward)]
2007: 5 [Genesis of Descent (mapset), Cheogsh (map), KDiZD (mapset, cacoward and mordeth), Torment & Torture (mapset), It Only Gets Worse (mapset, mockaward)]
2008: 7 [Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl (TC/standalone), Eternal Doom IV (mapset), Thunderpeak (2 maps), BGPA Missions: Liberation (TC), Chex Quest 3 (standalone), Cold as Hell (TC), Community is Falling 3 (mapset, mockaward))
2009: 3 [Harmony (TC), Legacy of Suffering (TC???), Demons of Problematique 2 (mapset))
2010: 5 [Unloved (mapset? PC?), Valhalla (map), Stronghold (TC? PC? cacoward and mordeth), Aeons of Death (mod, worst wad), TurboCharged ARCADE! The Sequel Episode (mapset, mockaward)]
2011: 2 [Mandril Ass Project (mapset, mockaward), Brutal Doom (gameplay mod)]
2012: 6 [Strife: Absolute Order (6-map hub), Putrefier (map), Reelism (mod), Winter's Fury (mapset?), Russian Overkill (gameplay mod), Call of Dooty II (map, mockaward)]
2013: 4 [ZDCMP2 (mapset, cacoward and mordeth), Pirate Doom (TC), Project MSX (gameplay mod), Extreme Weapon Pack (gameplay mod, mockaward)] (5 if you count Samsara, which was made for Zandronum)
2014: 4 [The Adventures of Square: Episode 1 (TC/standalone?), Plasmaplant (map), Urban Brawl: Dead of Winter (addon for AD2), DemonSteele (gameplay mod)]
2015: 3 [Skulldash (TC???? idk help), dead.wire (mapset), DoomRL Arsenal (gameplay mod)]
2016: 4 [Elf Gets Pissed (Heretic mapset), Blade of Agony: Episode 1 (TC. standalone?), D4D (gameplay mod), Ludicrium (mapset, mockaward)]
2017: 7 [lilith.pk3 (standalone), Shadows of the Nightmare Realm (mapset), dead.air (mapset/TC-ish?), Void and Rainbow (mapset), Doom Delta (gameplay mod), Final Doomer (gameplay mod), High Noon Drifter (gameplay mod)]
2018: 8 [Dark Universe, Part 1 (mapset?), The Adventures of Square: Episode 2 (standalone), Golden Souls 2 (TC), UAC Invasion: The Supply Depot (map), Guncaster (gameplay mod), Netronian Chaos (gameplay mod), Total Chaos (TC/standalone?, Mordeth, Spaceship of Theseus), Mr. Friendly (mod, Machaward)] (previously counted GMOTA, but that's Zandro too)
2019: 9 [Verdant Citadel (map), Paradise (map), Hell-Forged (TC), Hocus Pocus Doom (TC), The Wayfarer (Heretic mapset), Lt.Typhon (gameplay mod), NAKU-NARU (gameplay mod), Doom Neural Upscale 2X (hires upscale pack, Codeaward (?????)), Hedon (Standalone, Spaceship of Theseus)]

Hopefully I didn't miss any by accident. (ones with question marks are because I'm not 100% sure on the count)
Fixed some numbers, and updated it with the exact mods and awards now that I'm reposting it. I think I'm gonna turn it into a spreadsheet because this forum version is ugly.

[Edit] The spreadsheet version is done.

[Edit 2] Here's the current totals of each award type a (G)ZDoom mod has gotten:

Code: Select all

Cacowards: 54
Gameplay mod: 14
Mockaward: 10
Mordeth: 5
Worst Wad: 3
Spaceship of Theseus: 2
Machaward: 1
Multiplayer award: 1
Codeaward: 1

[Aurelius]

EDIT: Made an important edit after mistakenly(?) assuming this referred to my map instead of the Machaward.

What bothers me is the Cacoward for that gross vanilla conveyor hack.

In Remnant, I used the vanilla conveyor, but also included a Boom conveyor that will "lock" the vanilla one when Boom compatible source ports are being used, therefore making the map completely playable in GZDoom. This is not a difficult thing to setup either, so it should not cause long lasting problems for map compatibility even if vanilla conveyor was used. My entire point was to have as wide a compatibility as possible so that people could choose their preferred source port to enjoy the map, because to me that's what Doom is all about.